It’s me (cooking, also the shift supervisor) + one server (I’ll call her M for this story). There were supposed to be two servers, but the other called out right before the shift. We get there, and the store is a shitshow, as usual. Whatever, I start cleaning it. M is complaining the whole time, I commiserate with her because this sucks. the second shift is supposed to a cleaning/restocking shift, and it looks worse than before. But, whatever, we’re in this now, so I’m cleaning and cooking for the steady flow of customers that come in.
So, later in the night, around 2am, a group of drunk teens come in. Groups of drunk teens come in nearly every night, so it’s whatever. They’re going to be loud and annoying, but that’s just customers. We have about three other tables in there, so I’m still cooking their orders as they walk in.
Then, M starts telling them to leave, that she’s not going to serve them because they are loud and they don’t tip enough.
I turn around. What the fuck. Why is she doing this. She says, again, she’s not serving them. She’s too tired to deal with them. The teens are getting agitated, not sure whether they want to leave or get angry at her. They do the annoying TikTok teen thing where they all go “what did I do???” even though they definitely know that they act rowdy asf when they’re here. THEN. FUCKING THEN. M points out A SPECIFIC KID and says that “he’s the main problem, he’s always loud”.
I battle between letting her dig her own grave and stepping in, and decide that if we get a complaint and the supervisor didn’t step in in this situation, I’d be fired right alongside her. So, damage control time.
I tell her, whisper-yelling that she cannot fucking refuse customers for not tipping enough money. I step in, and I say I will serve them. She, out loud, starts arguing with me about it, and I tell her to serve her other customers and leave them alone. I will handle it. She’s like “who’s gonna cook then??” And I’m like ME. I’m going to cook and serve these fucking people because you won’t. She looks at me, dead in my eyes, and says “I’m gonna fucking walk out.”
Oh fucking please. I tell her to serve the other customers, I’m going to finish the order that I’M STILL COOKING WHILE THIS IS GOING ON, and then serve them and cook their food. I tell them to sit down, and they are clearly conflicted about it, since the store staff are doing the equivalent of mom and dad arguing and telling them to leave and stay. They eventually sit down. I get a pen and a blank receipt to write their order on, and come back.
M is pissed off, bringing silverware to them. I tell her, for the third time, to go take care of her other fucking customers. She refuses, telling me to go cook. I’m not going to her serve these people who she just insulted and is clearly still angry at, but she will not fucking move. I still need to finish the third table’s order, so I move to go make it quickly. By the time I’m done, she’s checking another table out, and so I go up to the group of teens and start asking for drink orders and serving them. They’re like “how much do we have to tip you? Nah, how much do we tip you since we don’t tip enough?” And I tell them not to worry about it, that I’m sorry, and that I’ll get them whatever they need.
The one kid she pointed out tells me he’s just going to get a to-go order, just one waffle, no drink. His friends are teasing him because M pointed him out, telling him that he better not be loud and that they’ll smack him like his momma if he starts getting rowdy, (it’s the south we do talk like that) etc. I say okay, that’s fine, reiterate that he is absolutely allowed in here, trying to do damage control. as I’m taking the others’ orders, he says that he’ll get a drink, a To-go coke. That makes me feel a little bit better, and I’m hoping if I get him his waffle in a to-go container and give it to him with the lid off, he might stay and eat it with his friends and the experience will be a whole lot better.
I take their orders, get their drinks, and cook their food. M is looking at all of this, seemingly giving up on serving them finally and letting me take care of it. They all chill out, and the kid who got the to-go does end up staying and eating. He asks me if he can pay, so he does, and he’s like “do tips go to you if I put them on here?” I tell him yes (no they don’t but I really don’t want to cause problems atm) and he tips $5. The rest pay as well, and then leave.
M comes back, and I tell her they left $5. She sheeplishly says that she’ll Venmo me. I tell her no, that wasn’t the point. If they had walked out and called to complain, then you could have lost your job. The complaints are seen by everyone, up to the district manager. Not only that, but I could have lost my job because I’m the supervisor and they would say I should have stopped it. If you don’t want to serve someone, that’s fine, but fucking TELL ME ABOUT IT. I will work something out. If you had just told me before that you didn’t want to serve them, I would have done it and they wouldn’t have needed to know. Plus, with the other customers there, they ALL heard her say that she wasn’t serving them because they didn’t tip well, and I guarantee that they will never show up on your shifts again, if at all. I am also not a big dude and if that situation turned violent then I would not be able to defend her.
She later apologized, saying that she had had a bad day and was angry at the last shift for leaving the store so dirty. I reminded her that I was ALSO cleaning this whole shift, and that if she needs a breaks, to once again ASK before she blows up in a customer’s face. I ended up telling my unit manager about it (he’s a pretty chill dude, and I wasn’t trying to get her in trouble, but I do have to tell him about these things, especially if we do get a complaint.) and he did scold her, but mostly just an exhausted “for the love of fuck do not do that”.
I am a supervisor in name, but M and I are definitely coworkers, and we have hung out outside of work. I told her to never fucking do that shit to me again. We both could have gotten fired, or worse hurt or killed. You never know if someone has a gun on them. She was like “well you have bad days too” and I had to stop myself from showing her a bad day and punching her in the face.
